Editor’s note: This essay was written in 1991 during the filming of A River Runs Through It in Livingston, Montana. It appeared in Toby Thompson’s 2012 book, Riding the Rough String: Reflections on the American West. He has updated it for Mountain Outlaw magazine.
Watching River Flow, Part 1: Looking upstream BY TOBY THOMPSON
A River Runs Through It debuted in Bozeman’s Ellen Theatre in 1992 and this summer marks its 30th anniversary. In this iconic scene, Brad Pitt’s character, Paul Maclean, demonstrates the art of “shadow casting.” The scene was filmed on the Gallatin River. A River Runs Through It © 1992 Allied Filmmakers, N.V. All Rights Reserved.
1920s motorcycle on high, thin wheels swims through gravel on Callender Street as a grizzled man in coveralls rides it past horse-drawn buggies, Model Ts, and a fat team of Percherons hauling a buckboard. The Panaflex swings as costumed extras cross an avenue dressed in fake balconies, gas lampposts and wooden sidewalks. This is the opening scene to A River Runs through It. Every trace of modern Livingston has been camouflaged. Director Robert Redford’s cinematographer, Phillipe Rousselot, gauges the exquisite afternoon light before panning sky and mountains, then gliding to the Maclean boys scouting town. They’re supporting actors. Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt play Norman MacLean, author of the novella upon which the film is based, and his brother Paul, respectively, with Tom Skerritt as their father and Emily Lloyd as Norman’s wife. River is strikingly cast, but for the moment it’s Redford’s set that intrigues. Livingston’s falsefront buildings, wide 19th-century streets, and surrounding Absaroka Mountains have not required much doctoring. Livingstonians are happy to see the film here; some speak of leaving its scenery in place, to lure tourists. As much as $10 million will be pumped into a depressed economy by River’s crew. The civic center, rented for $2,000 per month, is now a sound stage. Merchants are being compensated for this shot’s disruption. Locals have been hired as extras, grips, tailors, seamstresses and carpenters. As Redford hopes to bring River in for $12 million, most are earning a bottom-drawer wage. Redford slouches in a canvas chair on Callender’s sidewalk, his head tilted toward the sun. He’s conferring with staff when this reporter’s spotted. We shake hands then face off in the street like gunfighters. Redford initiates a diatribe against magazine, television and newspaper reporting, even the Washington Post’s (whose Watergate coverage his portrayal of Bob Woodward, in All the President’s Men, eternalized) before conversation eases toward Montana and author Tom McGuane, a friend who introduced Redford to Norman Maclean’s book in 1980. Redford’s face brightens. He’s lunched at McGuane’s, promising that River will be dedicated to American Rivers, a foundation McGuane represents.
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